


Lessons in Cheating

by theprincessofdenial



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, I guess mostly the comic book, Misery Ensues, Origin Story, and by canon I mean the first comic book too, content warning: animal death (nothing explicit), my superpower is re-entering dead fandoms and posting works written years ago, no it's not that kind of cheating, sad genius children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23239807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprincessofdenial/pseuds/theprincessofdenial
Summary: He starts with small things. He doesn't return the book borrowed from the library until two days after he is supposed to. He sneaks mean remarks into his essays, and no one notices. He realizes nobody reads them, and one time he doesn't do his homework and hands the teacher an excerpt from a sci-fi short story he likes so much. Billy feels like a criminal mastermind for a moment. He decides to cheat on a test but there's no point in it because it's so embarrassingly easy he's known every answer for years. He gets bullied and punched more frequently for his new-found smugness but even with two broken ribs he is the king.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This alludes mostly to the comic book origin story. Content warning: animal death. Beta by Owca, and I’m very grateful for it. The second chapter can serve as an epilogue or can be not read at all. 
> 
> So yeah, apparently in my late twenties I’m still not past my teenage angst phase.

Billy is a good boy. He always looks around before crossing the street and he remembers to wash his hands before eating. He does what he's told when mother wants him to go to sleep early and just watches the ceiling for hours in the darkness. Even though he learns how to read before he turns three years old, it takes him another three years to realize he could use a flashlight to read a book in the darkness. But that would be cheating.

Billy does what he's told. When Mrs. Jenkins tells his parents he should be moved up to sixth grade he doesn't protest. He didn't have friends anyway and now he will have access to the parts of the library that were restricted. The adults are Always Right and everything they do, they do for good reasons.

They take care of him and it's okay if you don't understand the reasons for some things. Like why does dad expect him to join the wrestling team even after he got his arm broken twice. He is exceptionally resilient and he does seem to have a talent for surviving falls that should do some serious damage. They still hurt like hell and he gets hurt even more every day because he sucks at wrestling, as well as any other sports his parents make him pick up. But he knows how to roll with the punches and he knows how to take a beating. It's something. After a few months when Zack from the seventh grade takes interest in bullying him he is somewhat grateful for the wrestling experience. He still can’t defend himself but the humiliation is less bitter when you've already grown accustomed to it. Perhaps that was what dad wanted all along. After all, Billy was better off listening to him. Sort of.

Billy is a good boy and he doesn't question his mom when she makes him go out and expects him to play with the other kids even though he just spends two hours on the bench at the playground. He tries kicking his legs but then he realizes he's eight and kicking legs is for children. So he settles for staring. After some time he understands nobody is checking up on him and he could go to the library and lie about it. But that would be cheating so he just does his homework on the bench by the playground and then he comes up with stories about Justice Joe that he tells himself because there’s no one else to listen. Billy doesn't understand why anyone would try to oppose Justice Joe. He can't understand why anyone could decide to be a villain. Villains are bad, and every authority figure will tell you that. They might not explain why, but they don't need to. Billy respects authority. Billy is a good boy, even if sometimes it doesn't seem like it's worth it.

When Billy thinks about it in the years to come, he sees that the epiphany wasn't that unexpected. He must have realized that authority can be very arbitrary some time before he quietly cheered for Mister Maniacal beating Justice Joe to death. And surely he must have noticed he himself had much more in common with the villain than with the authority (the meaning of the word shifted somehow, he realizes with amazement). Villains are on the losing side but it's not because of karma or some mystical force of justice deciding their fates. Villains are the weak ones.

Or perhaps they are the smart ones who still hadn't learnt how to cheat.

It isn't about the short moment of the scientist being triumphant, though that's what Billy prefers to remember. The clarity comes hours after that. He's standing in the crowd (dad wanted to give him a piggyback but he managed to refuse) and he hears Mister Maniacal being burned at the stake. The man was a genius. Billy has seen him come up with all kinds of amazing inventions and every one of them got stomped upon by bullies. And Billy cheered them on. _How could he?_ Even the last one got destroyed by troglodytes who had no understanding of what a breakthrough it was. Mister Maniacal built a device that could turn people into living statues. He had no chance in a hand to hand combat so he found a way to cheat. Billy has no idea how the scientist did that but he knows he will find out and he will repeat it someday.

He thinks briefly that he and the writhing man might be the only ones knowing what kind of chemical reaction is happening right now. But if he feels sick, it's because of the smell.

He starts with small things. He doesn't return the book borrowed from the library until two days after he is supposed to. He sneaks mean remarks into his essays and no one notices. He realizes nobody reads them and one time he doesn't do his homework and hands the teacher an excerpt from a sci-fi short story he likes so much. Billy feels like a criminal mastermind for a moment. He decides to cheat on a test but there's no point in it because it's so embarrassingly easy he's known every answer for years. He gets bullied and punched more frequently for his new-found smugness but even with two broken ribs he is the king. He knows he will rise soon and he'll have his revenge. Choking on the blood running from his nose, Billy imagines Zack begging for his mercy and receiving none.

When they transfer him two classes up again, he knows nothing will be different. And nothing is, everybody hates him and the feeling is quite mutual. By that time he keeps blueprints under his bed and during the lunch breaks he entertains himself with the knowledge how to accelerate the decomposition of every item in every lunchbox in the building. However, he doesn't have the materials necessary to build such a transmitter, and he knows that giving everyone food poisoning is _too evil_.

Billy _does_ have access to a nearby hardware store's warehouse, because the lock isn't that good and Billy doesn't like its owner. There's a three-legged crossbred guard dog that somebody at some point threw out of a moving vehicle, Billy suspects from its appearance. The dog is nice and seriously underfed. The retailer doesn't take care of the animal and Billy decides that it would be a stunning act of evilness to be nice to that dog simply out of spite. He really doesn't like the warehouse's owner. He decides that he should start his career as a supervillain with a formidable animal at his side, and the dog will do. He names it The Destroyer.

So one night Billy takes a bath, brushes his teeth, tells his parents good night, and sneaks out through the window. He breaks into the building easily and he steals everything he needs for his simplest and most achievable invention. Then he steals all the screwdrivers he can find because he's a villain and it would be a very villainous thing if nobody in the neighborhood would be able to buy a screwdriver the next day. The Destroyer wags its tail happily at the familiar child.

Billy doesn't visit the dog for weeks because he uses up every moment his parents aren't home to work on his prototype of a prosthetic leg for the animal. He feels slightly guilty about it because The Destroyer is already too thin and who is going to bring him leftovers if Billy is not around? But soon he and The Destroyer will run away and wreak havoc. They will be known as William the Horrible and Destroyer the Cyborg Hound. None of them will be a good boy.

Billy is very excited about the prospect. He needs a few final modifications for the prototype and he will be able to test it on The Destroyer next Monday. On Friday he goes to the hardware store with a sausage in his backpack to tell his soon-to-be partner in crime how their lives are going to change.

There's an Alsatian with four perfectly working legs. There has been a break-in about a month ago and the old guard dog was put down because it was useless.

Only Billy knows whose fault it was, and he keeps it to himself. Just a first truly evil secret among many to come. He is no longer a good boy.


	2. 2 (An epilogue of sorts)

When everything goes to hell after the opening of the homeless shelter, Billy knows what to do. He knows that every villain needs a tragic backstory and he couldn't be where he is without a heartbreaking loss. But Billy was never a person who knew when to give up and walk away. He intends to cheat.  
The freeze ray wasn't working the moment Penny was dying but at least he could use it to preserve her body. Penny would be waiting for him indefinitely. Billy reasons that his status of a mad scientist comes with consequences. He knows who is the archetype and he understands that the popular correlation between science and evil didn't come from the works of philosophers questioning modernity after second world war – it started at least a century earlier with Mary Shelley. The scientists make perfect villains because they disobey God's will. They ignore the laws of men and every sacred scripture. They know how to cheat, and that’s what makes them special.

  
He doesn't name the cat he kidnaps from the animal shelter. He's learnt his lesson years ago. He considers testing his theories on an already dead one but he needs to be sure. He must know how the animal acted before its death, how it moved, how much it used to sleep and what it liked.  
This is not pleasant. He would prefer to do this quickly, to never know the cat and to test his invention the moment he brings the animal to the laboratory. But there would be no point. He must know. When the cat purrs on his lap he very carefully doesn't think of it as "Penny".  
Through all these months he’s able to come up with only one way to resurrect the dead and he realizes with panic that if it doesn't work, there are no alterations and no new equations he can do to make it right. Even if he spends every waking hour of the rest of his life running the calculations, he won't come up with anything. There’s nothing else to come up with. The test will be final and perhaps that's why he keeps postponing the experiment. He double-checks every symbol and every shred of thought. The cat sleeps in impossible places and positions, rubs against his legs, and occasionally chases a skein of wool.

It doesn't hurt, Billy makes sure of that. The animal falls asleep and, in contrast with Billy, doesn't even feel any nausea.

  
Billy feared it and the suspicion paralyzed him but when the cat doesn't wake up he still feels cheated somehow. He buries the animal in the public park just before the dawn; there’s a small ceremony of sorts, and he’s the only one attending. He’s not sure if he’s holding it for the unnamed cat or for Penny.  
He gets another cat.  
And then another. And there are many to come, for Billy is no longer a good man.


End file.
